


Cherchez la Femme

by deskclutter



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Anthropomorphism - Freefom, Fabricati Diem Pvnc, Gen, The Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May, prodding of buttock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:50:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samuel Vimes: his Watch, his City, his remembrance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherchez la Femme

**Title:** Cherchez la Femme  
**Day/Theme:** May 25 / force majeure  
**Series:** Discworld  
**Character/Pairing:** Sam Vimes  
**Rating:** G  
_                    and in the sky  
The larks, still bravely singing, fly_

  
Watchmen are buried at the cemetery of Small Gods, which is a diplomatic way of saying that they tend not to believe in gods, though they wouldn't tell you so, in so many words. People who do that have a tendency to attract priests or Constable Washpot, and while Washpot wasn't a bad sort most of the time on account of being a Watchman, priests could very often take up time best used for being a Watchman.

There are no heroes in the Watch; the first man who tried to do the right thing by the law was executed for his troubles. And yet every single one of them did their jobs, which is all one should ever ask of a man of the City Watch.

There are no statues, there are no monuments. There are derisive rumours that pass within the breaths of each successive century and the ill repute that dogs their heels.  
So why do they do it?

  
There is a sort of poetry that roams along the streets of Ankh Morpork. Rain patters on the streets as it has done for centuries; the sound of history repeats itself every day in the sound of wagon wheels on the roads, in the clear ring of a copper's bell, in the feel of cobblestones underfoot. The city breathes in time to her people, and the everyday acts of thievery and robbery run in time to her heartbeat.

Sam Vimes, if he knew the words, could recite them all by heart. Instead he knows: this is the thrill of the chase, this is the smell of the Ankh, this is the clatter and moral ambiguity of my damn city. This is the silence of Old Tom, this is the shame and pride of growing up on Cockbill Street, this is the revered Ankh Morpork humour as I am running down Short Street. This is how the cobbles feel, this is my inner clock reminding me when to go home, this is how we do it all by the book here in Ankh Morpork.

He doesn't have the words for it, but he'd never want to be a poet anyway. He's a Watchman through and through.

  
_We are the Dead. Short days ago  
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow._

  
This is the job, by official reckoning. One signs up, and is accorded a pledge, a badge, standard armour and weapon. One joins the ranks, one becomes a Man of the Watch, one keeps the peace.

Sam learnt the hard way about hazing, and about the sleepless nights, and the horrifying aspect of being the city's most hated. Sam learnt the hard way about nightmares and about friends dying, and other friends moving up in the ranks while the Night Watch stayed in the gutter where everyone said it belonged. There are no heroes in the Watch, only superfluous bodies that are the first line of defence in the gods' games, little pawns that topple one over the other with plenty more emerging from the gutter to replace those who have died.

Sam learnt the hard way of what it was like to watch his mentor die, and the man who didn't like his mentor die, and some kids he grew up with in their whitewashed houses on Cockbill Street fall to the rage and fury of the Greater Good. Sam learnt the hard way how to fight, how to get by, how not to give in to the urge to let it all end, even if the price was found at the end of the bottle and he always misjudged his limits.

Fred Colon found another job in the army. All the armies were recruiting back then, and even Nobby found a way to make a living out of it. Sam said no, when Fred asked awkwardly if he wanted Fred to put in a good word for him. He's a Watchman, and even if he turns out to be the worst Watchman in the multiverse, he's a Watchman to the end.

Sometimes it seems like just yesterday his breastplate was still shiny and Wiglet and Nancyball and even Coates were teasing him, the newest brat in the Watch, and John Keel was watching him with the eyes of a man who's seen everything and done everything. Sometimes Sam Vimes wishes that yesterday were today and that they'd all be like Reg Shoe and come on back up out of the ground just as the song goes…

But all things change, and Sammy's got some tarnish on him, and that's all right, he's just that one step closer to becoming like his idol, who died. All things change and look at what kind of place old Snapcase has turned their city into. It's not a better place, and there's no point in their coming back if it'd just send them back into their graves again. Death's the only thing they've got going right; you die when you die and when you fight for good, things should turn out good.

Sometimes he thinks it's killing him, the way Ankh Morpork has gone, but that's not true. Sam Vimes learnt the hard way of how to survive. He's got a job to do.

  
_Take up our quarrel with the foe:  
To you from failing hands we throw  
The torch; be yours to hold it high.  
If ye break faith with us who die,  
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow_

  
This is the job.

The chase, the capture, the laying down of the law. And one does that because of the pledge to protect and serve; because of the badge, which is all the authority that one ever needs; because one keeps the gods damned peace even if the definition of peace has changed over the years.

There are seven gravestones that mark the places of men who did more, who went 'over and beyond the call of duty' as the official medals with their bells and jingles go. But Vimes won't let them be made into heroes; there are no heroes in the Watch. They are the men who did the job they didn't have to do, the job they did because they were right there, just as the lilac was there, and as it is there every year to remind Vimes that he was once an idealist, and there are people, who under different circumstances would have been made into heroes. But the circumstances weren't right and they weren't heroes, just revolutionary scum and Watchmen.

And all they ever asked, as all Watchmen ever ask, was for their successors and their old mates to do the job. Take the badge, make the pledge and keep the peace. The important thing isn't the lilac, not its scent or shape or shade, just that it was there, and that's what the Watch is ever meant to do.

But why?

There's a poetry to the streets of Ankh Morpork, in its zigzag roads and even in the murky reaches of the Shades. There's a song in Dibbler's swindles, there's a rhythm to the sound of butchers culling animals. There's an arpeggio in the slow ooze of the Ankh and a dissonant harmony where the people stand.

The city, she's a woman, and she may not be the prettiest, or the most moral, and she's certainly not the best, but by all the gods, she's had her teeth in all of them from before they could walk and so it's no surprise that they'd kill for her, work for her, and keep the peace for her.

There are no heroes in the City Watch; there are only survivors and memories they carry of those who slumber in the cemetery of Small Gods, while the lilacs bloom overhead every May, and those few who were there remember them.

 

_"This city. This city. This city, Sar'nt. This city is a, is a, is a Woman, Sarn't. So t'is. A Woman, Sarn't. Ancient raddled old beauty, Sarn't. Butifyoufallinlovewithher, then, then, then shekicksyouinnateeth—" _  
\- Samuel Vimes, _Guards! Guards!_


End file.
